Part of being a good filmmaker, I believe, is to constantly try new things. For me that includes equipment, new technology, different Crew members, new Clients & new Ideas etc. Recently I had the pleasure of working on a new Campaign that forced me to think about my own “filmmaking process” in a different way. That project was a Television Commercial (TVC) for Ponds, a beauty product.

For me this particular project was different because it was a beauty Ad! It was different because the process of making this TVC was different to other work I have been involved with. I suppose on a filmmaking level, the nuts and bolts is the same, just the interaction with the Agency & Client was quite different. As you may be aware, many of my Commercials involve the heavy integration of 3D. This Commercial was no different. The balance here was to create a “Beauty Spot” which involved a “high concept idea” of pages from a magazine flipping helping us to tell a story, but remained soft, feminine and playful.

It all started back in January, when Kemistry Films in Jakarta Indonesia contacted me to have a look at a concept for a TVC involving pages flipping. I had previously created a TVC for Canon that involved a “Flip book” style and I guess once you have done one, you get calls for more (hopefully?). Any case there was enough of a difference for me to be interested in the project. The opportunity to extend my repertoire to include beauty products was enough of a lure.

On the 1st of March, I flew to Jakarta from Singapore, having just completed a Canon Commercial for China. In fact, we were still finalising the Online that Sunday for Canon and by Monday afternoon I was attending preproduction meetings for Ponds in Jakarta! The TVC was written by Ad Agency Ogilvy & Mather in Jakarta by creatives Dinah Sumantri and Dewi Putri. Both are young, very considered, super thoughtful and I’m not just saying that because I was working for them! They were incredibly cool to work with. Both had produced many beauty spots in the past for Ponds but had not had a huge amount of 3D integration experience. Nor had the Client. So finally, after months of preproduction work, I finally met with everyone in Jakarta to discuss how we were going to make this TVC. Creative Director Dewantarie Hadikoesoemo helped walk the Client through the process and if there is one thing I could stress the most is the importance of “Managing peoples expectations”. It’s absolutely critical on these types of of jobs. It’s also fantastic when the Agency is so supportive in this regard and Ogilvy & Mather rose to the occasion.

This Ponds TVC is built around a competition involving three winners. I spent several days putting most of the winners through, not only make-up and wardrobe tests, but also a photo shoot. I used this opportunity to break them into the weird world of advertising. I always like to rehearse whenever I can to eliminate much of the initial folly that can take place. That way we can concentrate on making the best possible TVC with the most fluid, tightly integrated 3D and post production effects etc. Importantly though, it gives me the confidence to mould their performances in the best way I can.

On the 7th of March, Goh spent the day pre-lighting the sets for the shoot. He is a true gentleman to work with. A quiet achiever with a real flare for lighting which I really appreciated. Actually my entire crew was fantastic. Rini had recommended a brilliant Production Designer from Malaysia called Malek Prada. He came up with some pretty awesome designs and Set pieces which was great. Fendi, the make-up artist, was another very creative individual who sculpted our girls “looks” and really brought out their best. Wardrobe stylist Imelda Untoro was yet another vital ingredient to the overall success of the “look” of the TVC and her gracious and understanding manner made her a pleasure to interact with. Others I had worked with before included 1st AD Eugenea Agnes, who was not only an absolute pleasure to work with but conscientious and diligent while always being fun spirited. What more could anyone ask for! Rini had assembled quite an amazing international crew as well as provided a very solid and capable local Indonesian crew, which as awesome!

On that day we tested for as many scenarios as we could before finalising for the shoot. I place a lot of value in rehearsing Actors before any shoot. Keep in mind all our Girls were “civilians” not actors! None of them had any experience at all on screen. They all had a speaking roll to play as well as look glamorous on screen and to their credit, performed magnificently.

On the 8th of March we started filming. The two day shoot was actually quite involved, requiring everyone to imagine a 3D world around them. Quite a number of elements were required to be filmed including a huge list of high resolution images to be used as textures for 3D. Having Damien there on set was absolutely fantastic. He’s a very creative person and it’s great bouncing ideas off him while actually still on set – a process that I really enjoy. Finally with the 2 day shoot behind us, it was time for Post. The guys from BMD flew back to Singapore while I continued on at VHQ Jakarta to oversee the Telecine with Goh Meng. Rushes looked great and I finally met my Offline editor, Zaki Marican. He is a freelance editor who edits on his Macbook Pro and an external monitor. It’s an ever growing trend for editors to be completely independent from Post Houses. Zaki was great. On the 11th of March, he cut the TVC in a small amount of time using the rough 3D animations created on set by Chachoon and Damien Yang. The TVC was actually quite polished even at this stage. Later that afternoon, Rini and her assistant Producer Elle brought in a Composer to receive a brief from me. We talked about musical styles and I handed him a few references. At the end of the day, I felt like a lot had been achieved and good work had taken place!

The 12th of March, we presented first to the Agency and then later to Client. They loved it! On the 13th, I finally flew back to Singapore to handover the Rushes, Edit Decision List etc to Damian at BMD. With that, I left Singapore for home – something I hadn’t done for almost 3 months due to all these back to back projects! The next two weeks, Damien and the gang at BMD spent enormous amounts of time creating and rendering amazing 3D content. They were sending me mpegs to approve along the way. Derri NG (BMD Producer) and I sent each other quite a few emails back and forth, fine tuning things.

On the 30th of March, it was time to fly back to Singapore for the last leg. Over the next week, we rendered out each of the scenes. The Client and Agency arrived in Singapore on the 4th of April and we presented for them a work in progress. The purpose of these final Client/Agency meetings is to make sure that we are all on the same page and are moving forward in the right direction. It affords some minor changes at this point, if the Client wants something corrected by giving the 3D team some time to effect the change. The last couple of days are fixed in stone though. It’s merely a process from then on to finish the TVC. That’s exactly what we did. Hours before I was due to fly back to Australia, I was still overseeing the last renders in the timeline. Lead animator at BMD, Vincent Yoe, spent a few days glued to his seat, continuously! He is one of the most gifted animators I know with a style that I really enjoy. Off course there are others working with him who are equally talented and I thank them all for their help on this project. Damien weaved an incredible amount of compositing magic, blending the 3D with the live action shots and once again proved that he is an exceptionally talented compositor! The Girls all look fantastic and the 3D is very fluid and beautiful to watch in my opinion. Damien is incredible person and a very trusted and dear friend of mine. I always enjoy catching up.

Just as a side note, many of the images you see on this blog entry were shot for the Commercial also. They were used as part of the content of the flipping magazine, although much of that was reduced by me in the final version. I took hundreds of shots of all our cast & crew, including the Agency to be able to fill a magazine full of images etc. This in itself was a big task. As usual, this type of job is a huge collaborative effort. From the resourceful crew at Kemistry Films, to the clever gang at Ogilvy & Mather to the persistent & talented tribe at Blackmagic-Design, I think we created a nice spot for Ponds. The three winning Girls all look great and have a light and feminine touch to their personalities. I would like to thank the patient crew of the shoot for helping me to create this TVC. Hope you enjoy it also. Cheers!

After Machete Maidens concluded in Singapore, I stayed on while the rest of the crew headed back to Melbourne. While I can’t divulge what exactly I was working on, other then that it was for Canon, there wasn’t any spare time between the two jobs. The next morning was spent re-familiarising myself with the footage and approving work created by VHQ in Singapore. The process of working on television commercials is just so different to long form projects, it’s always a bit of a culture shock to me when I swap between the two styles of filmmaking! A week of intense Post Production activities past and at the end of it, I think we produced a pretty amazing commercial. I will certainly blog about the experience when the time is right.

In true fashion, the TVC was completed on a Sunday night, after the last official day of the Chinese New Year Celebrations ended! Actually, I went down to Chinatown to witness the fireworks display and street theatre that took place in Singapore. Quite a cool experience. However, on Monday the 1st of March, I flew to Jakarta to start my next job. As it turned out, again there was no break between the projects! After landing I went straight into preproduction meetings at the office before finally crashing in my hotel room!

I’m now deeply intrenched into the preproduction stage of that job, with filming to start on the 8th of March and conclude on the 9th!

While on a business trip to Jakarta Indonesia recently, I had a few hours to go and visit the old Dutch Port of Batavia again. This time I wanted to capture images on HD Video, using the 5DMKII. I find that when I concentrate on shooting Stills, my brain doesn’t allow me to switch easily to shooting Video. It’s a strange thing really and one I’m trying to fix. Last time I was here, I captured hundreds of amazing images but virtually no HD video. With only a couple of hours on a Sunday, I ran around like a madman filming the workers as they unloaded/ loaded the Tall ships birthed at the Port. It is still amazing to me that a place like this could exist! After all, it’s the beginning of yet another decade and the scene before me looked more like from Robert Louis Stevens era?! The image above is a link to the video (hosted by vimeo). Enjoy!

To read my article on taking photos at the old Dutch Port of Batavia see here

To read my blog entry on this business trip see here

On the 22nd of January, I flew to Jakarta via Denpasar Bali! My Garuda flight from Melbourne terminated there and from there in, I had to clear customs and collect my luggage. Next a one and a half hour wait ensued, before my domestic flight to Jakarta. Slightly bored by this stage I jumped onto Twitter & asked the Community what I should do! A quick Bintang beer later and five minutes later, some one tweeted that I should take a cab ride to Kuta Beach! So I did!

Finally I arrived in Jakarta & caught up with Producer David Hewitt from Kemistry. It’s always a pleasure catching up with both David & his wife, Producer Rini Susanti. After a few drinks and an awesome Indonesian meal at a restaurant in Kemang called Payon, I finally hit the sack!

Next day was a huge day spent at the Office at Kemistry, performing hair and make-up tests on our Cast. They are all “real” people who have won a competition through our Client, a beauty product manufacturer! My make-up artist is a Malaysian named Fendi, and he’s really good! He was able to design several looks for each winner. I shot over 22Gig of photos which is not normal for me. However the girls looked amazing, transformed into models, and I took advantage of the moment to breakdown their apprehension towards the camera! By doing this we got to know each other, and I think that when I come back in March to shoot the commercial, we will be in a great shape.

Sunday was spent with good friend & Driver at Kemistry, Fais. He drove me out to the “Old Dutch Port” in Jakarta again. I wanted to shoot video this time, and the weather was sunny! I can’t express strongly enough how incredible this place is for any photographer. We then drove to Mangga Dua, an electronics mega centre in Jakarta’s CBD.

After some shopping, I asked Fais to drive me to see the Railway Station. It’s old and rundown which I’ve already photographed once before. This time I was more interested in the rear, closed off section. We finally found a way in, and I think both of us were amazed at the size of the community that lived along the tracks! We played with kids on a home made trolley that ran on bearings along the tracks! A marvel of invention, it was so smooth that I used it as a Camera Dolly for a shot along the tracks!

Note the bent over nails holding the bearings onto the timber axle!

I’m going to post a video of the days adventures when I get the opportunity to edit the footage. To see images I shot of the Old Dutch Port in Jakarta from my last trip, here is the link.

Today is my last full day in Jakarta and for the most part it will be filled with meetings & presentations for both Agency and Client. I’m sitting here in the Kemistry Office drawing storyboards with an Artist, finalising everything with our team, so they can work on their own for the next few weeks.

For now though, this will be it, until I return in March. More preparations will take pace between then and now but I will be jumping to another project for 22 days straight in the mean time. More to come on that soon!

Here is a photo Gallery of yesterdays pics! Enjoy

I don’t often write about a job in as much detail as I have here. That’s because mostly I film in places that are familiar to me and perhaps the small details don’t really mean much. However this time around, I wanted to describe an experience in more detail, to record a more complete picture of my working life. Not that it’s that exciting but I wanted share what lengths we go to – to make a Television Commercial. This is part one of a two part series.

I arrived in Jakarta, after a flight from Melbourne, through Singapore, late on the 20th of October 2009. In the days proceeding, David Hewitt from Kemistry in Jakarta Indonesia had contacted me to see if I would be interested in Directing a TVC for Cussons Carex – A soap product. The Script had some similarities to some of my HP work and I felt that as long as I could make it different, the hands technique could work very well for the Cussons product also.

Directly after landing, I was whisked through immigration by an official who greeted me at the gate. I was sped through and released to a driver from Kemistry, who drove me through some pretty thick late night traffic in Jakarta for about an hour. On reaching the hotel, I had 30 minutes to get ready for an informal meet and greet plus a mini preproduction meeting in the lobby. There I met expat from Australia, David Hewitt, for the first time. After a quick meeting with some of the production staff, I finally got to sleep at about 11.30pm Jakarta time!

The next day, we hit the ground running by firstly checking out equipment at the local Camera Rental Facility CineRed. There I met another expat from Australia, creative consultant Peter Aquilina, who took us through a guided tour of his facility, which included the Camera Rental department, Post Production Facilities including Offline, Online and Grading using Scratch. After a very nice Javanese style lunch, we rushed to Kemistry’s office in Jakarta and began the process of Casting callbacks. I watched 9 girls present themselves which was in the end quite draining but necessary experience.

Day 2 started with me getting up very early to try and complete a massive pre production document for the PPM (Pre-Production Meeting) that afternoon. I spent quite a few days searching the net, scouring books and collaborating with Post Production Compositor Mike Parsons, from Chateau Post in Bangkok Thailand. By the afternoon, I had reviewed the Cast and made my recommendations, and produced a massive 50 slide Keynote presentation for the Client/Agency meeting at 5pm that day. That meeting went very well and that evening David and I went to have a drink at a local club in Kemang. There I met a group from various Agencies celebrating. I found it remarkable how many expats from Australia had settled in Jakarta and raved about how it is Asia’s best kept secret. To some degree, I think they were right!

Day3 was again full of preproduction madness. One unusual thing that happened was that I was requested by immigration to go down to their office and be fingerprinted, photographed etc I’m working in Indonesia with a proper work Visa so I have already gone through much of this in Melbourne at the Indonesian Embassy. Anyway, I turned up at the immigration office with David and waited inline with thousands of others in what looked like a scene from a movie. Ceiling fans churned the air slowly in the depressingly hot, public space of the immigration hall. A guy popped out of the crowd carrying my passport and warmly greeted me. I had never met him but I guess he had all my details including pictures of me! Taken into a back room, I waited with 10 or so others before being called by an immigration officer and summerly fingerprinted! If it wasn’t for some good company, I would definitely have found this process highly intimidating.

Next few days were spent working out our onset anamatic. For that I was in constant contact with Mike Parsons in Bangkok. He and I exchanged files over the internet, which for me was quite hard. Bandwidth in Jakarta gets very heavily bogged down during the day. With 240 million people, there is a lot of sharing of spaces, including of bandwidth to the internet. The roads are another major hazard. It’s relatively safe, but during the day the traffic builds up so thick that it flows like water around any obstacle or grinds to a halt. This includes sharing the footpath with millions of motorbike users and even cars, who skirt snarls in the traffic by driving on the footpath. Here’s a little clip shot on my 5DMKII.

Another comment about the footpaths in Indonesia – they are the worst I have seen anywhere. As an avid photographer, I like walking around taking photos. However in Jakarta, you need to be extremely careful that you don’t trip over rubbish on the ground, disappear into god knows what via massive holes in the ground or be impacted by a speeding motorbike.

After presenting our final preproduction items to the Client and Agency, everything was set in place for the production to take place. We shot at a small studio based in Mampang Jakarta. The crew were excellent and very efficiently setup the RED camera, Lighting and a huge video village. I often use vision mixers etc to incorporate 3D work by playing back guide animations from a DVD player. This time it was no exception. So we had a crew of guys handling the playback vision mixing requirements, proving a live image to an LCD screen hanging above the Camera. This was to allow our Cast, Amanda, to see herself relative to the guide animation. There were also the guys that handled the downloading of all the RED files and backing them up to multiple hard drives.

The shooting of this Commercial was made much easier by our Cast selection. I had chosen what I believed to be a very talented and pretty girl named Amanda. She appeared to take direction really well and understood the importance of the small details. However, even I was blown away by just how amazing this girl was. All day we practiced and improved her performance and gradually we began to film a few takes. By take 19, we were done. Her memory skills and subtleties of performance was astounding. The agency were also very impressed. The crew from McCan Jakarta were also really great to work with. I think they realised how technical the Commercial was to film and let me be for the most part. Constructively, they added value to the Clients concerns and supported me during presentation to Client. The day ended with the filming of references of the Products, some High Dynamic Range photography (HDRI) and some other textures. A very successful day.

Next day, straight into Offline. Eric (Offline editor) from CineRed had sent me the cut overnight! It was nearly perfect. Because we had shot on RED, the edit was simple to prepare. I did go through all my options but settled on what was obviously a great take. Based on this we cutdown a 15 sec and 5 sec version also. Client and Agency presentation followed in the afternoon and all were pretty happy. The following day was an early start again at Imaginex Studios Jakarta. I briefed the Composer for the design of the soundtrack then headed back to CineRed to conduct a final Grade of the RED images using Scratch. With our mission complete in Jakarta, it was time to pack the bags once more and fly to Bangkok Thailand, where the Online was to take place. This will feature in a separate article, soon to come. My final word for now is that although Jakarta is like a rough diamond, it’s a powerhouse of creative energy, fun people and an awesome place to film. I truly enjoyed my time there and hope to return soon.

The Finished Carex Commercial can be viewed here:

Over the years that I have been working throughout Asia, for some reason there are places I seem to skirt or overfly, not because I don’t want to go there, just simply because the opportunities had never eventuated. Recently, I had an occasion to work in Indonesia. Amazingly, Indonesia was one of those places that somehow stayed off my radar. So I was pretty keen to go visit.

I arrived in Jakarta, after a flight from Melbourne, through Singapore, late on the 20th of October 2009. The job (which is incomplete at this stage so I won’t mention it just yet) started straight away with preproduction meetings in the foyer of the hotel the same evening.

The next day, we hit the ground running by firstly checking out equipment at the local Camera Rental Facility CineRed. There I met an expat from Australia, creative consultant Peter Aquilina, who took us through a guided tour of his facility, which included the Camera Rental department, Post Production Facilities including Offline, Online and Grading using Scratch. Several days of Casting, Props and Wardrobe tests etc followed and my days were spent mostly on my laptop ensuring that all our post requirements were met. After about a week of hard work, we were ready to shoot in a small studio in Jakarta. I will write a full article later when the job has been cleared, about the process, which I think will be interesting to people. Overall, the Indonesian crews were excellent and the result of our efforts look awesome.

It wasn’t all hard work though. The local production Company, Kemistry, run by expat Aussie David Hewitt and his partner Rinni, sent me on a journey through West Java, with the help of their driver. I took my 5DMKII Canon stills camera and went berserk shooting the amazing landscape and people. Here are some of the images from that trip. The slide show below has many more.

I also visited some of the historical places within Jakarta itself. A former Dutch Colony, Jakarta still has many building around the old Port area, which mark their rule many years ago. They lie mostly as wrecked shells of their former glory but still possess some amazing beauty. The old dutch port area is still in use today. I travelled down to the Port and was amazed at the large, tall ships being loaded with cargo, as if from a scene from a Robert Louis Stevenson book! They were real tall ships, built with Masts, and planks of timber!! You have to see and feel this place to believe the image below. Simply amazing!

I can’t speak more highly about my experience in Indonesia. It baffles me why I haven’t been there before, even as a tourist. I think Australians in general have been conditioned to think “not favourably” about Indonesia as a holiday destination. That’s a huge shame but at the same time, Indonesia is one of Asia’s best kept secrets as a result. It’s still cheap, unspoilt from foreign development and hugely diverse. On the negative side, it’s infrastructure is quite poor in some cases. Many sidewalks for instance have huge holes in them, and you generally share the pavement with other Cars and Motorbikes. Speaking of Cars and Bikes, the crush of traffic in Jakarta was quite possibly the worst I have ever seen! So if you are disadvantaged physically or need to push a Pram, then maybe think differently when moving around Indonesia. The internet was dreadfully slow everywhere I went, with the best speeds approaching dialup rates. So yes there are a few things to consider, however generally I have to say, Indonesians are amazingly friendly, willing to welcome you where ever you go and help you at a drop of a hat. The visual spectacle of Indonesia is also unbelievable exciting. I visited so many interesting places in a short time, including the Pulaubuhan Ratu area of West Java, where I walked on amazing volcanic beaches, Hot Springs with Geysers, Markets in small towns and villages plus drove through countryside that was nothing short of spectacular – Rubber, Cocoanut Oil and Tea plantations lined the steep mountain roads for miles.

In summing up, I loved my experience in Indonesia. I hope I have inspired you to go and experience it for yourself. Enjoy!